Amy Tubbs

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From Barn Door to Shoji Screen

I do a lot of tranformations in this line of work, but this recent painting project turned out SUPER! But unfortunately, I cannot take the credit for the idea itself- it was a concept my client in Laurel, Maryland had for her upstairs hallway. She wanted to replace the standard doors opening into her hallway bath and laundry room with barn doors in order to maximize space. She already had an extensive collection of Japanese artwork, so the idea of painting the doors to look like a Japanese shoji screen just came naturally.

The first task was to draw the lines in even segments. I decided is was a good idea to make use of the blank wall space in between the two doors since it was similar in size to the doors.

I reinforced the lines with a little dark paint so they wouldn’t get lost when I started adding the background colors. Nothing drastic- just subtle gold and cream tones to give the impression there was light behind the screens.

Next, I painted a shadow of a tree- to break up the stoic pattern but to also add softness and interest to the overall look and feel of real shoji screens.

Finally, I needed to make the lines of the screens really pop- making them clean and precise, so that part was done last. Some blue painter’s tape helped keep everything tidy and looking good. The contrast of light and dark tones is really what is needed to make this design work!

The result was truly incredible- a perfect compliment to the kimono hanging in the foyer and the perfect tones for the lightly colored hallway.

Below you can see the door opening up the the bathroom.

As one final touch, the inside of the hallway bathroom was painted with this koi pond scene.